"
"O God!" muttered Gilbert, "is this man the blackest villain that ever
cumbered the earth? What am I to think, what am I to believe?"
Again he repeated the same question, with a stem kind of patience, as if
he would give this guilty wretch the benefit of every possible doubt, the
unwilling pity which his condition demanded. Alas! he could obtain no
coherent answer to his persistent questioning. Vague self-accusation, mad
reiteration of that one fact of his loss; nothing more distinct came from
those fevered lips, nor did one look of recognition flash into those
bloodshot eyes.
The time at which this mystery was to be solved had not come yet; there
was nothing to be done but to wait, and Gilbert waited with a sublime
patience through all the alternations of a long and wearisome sickness.
"Talk of friends," Mrs. Pratt exclaimed, in a private conference with the
nurse; "never did I see such a friend as Mr. Fenting, sacrificing of
himself as he do, day and night, to look after that poor creature in
there, and taking no better rest than he can get on that old horsehair
sofy, which brickbats or knife boards isn't harder, and never do you hear
him murmur."
And yet for this man, whose, battle with the grim enemy, Death, he
watched so patiently, what feeling could there be in Gilbert Fenton's
heart in all the days to come but hatred or contempt? He had loved him so
well, and trusted him so completely, and this was the end of it.
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